The MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC in Detail

The MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC is a very well-equipped Mini-ITX motherboard with Intel's Z270
chipset for Intel's processors of the 6000- and 7000 series. This black-themed board comes with one
PCIe-x16 slot, which is connected via 16 full lanes to the chipset. Some of the special features of the
MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC include a MSI Mystic Light LED controller, as well as an RGB-LED
header and the carbon-look styling of the motherboard.

The motherboard provides DDR4 RAM compatibility over two DIMM slots in ultra-fast dual-channel
mode. The memory banks take up to 64 GB RAM and, depending on the processor installed, supports
memory clocks of either 2.133 MHz (with Skylake CPUs) or 2.400 MHz (with Kaby Lake CPUs), and
overclocking also allows memory modules rated at speeds of up to 4.000 MHz.

In order to connect the very fastest data storage devices, the board comes with one M.2 slot for especially
fast NVMe M.2 SSDs as well as six SATA 6G ports for 3,5" or 2,5" hard drives and SSDs (including
RAID support). The M.2 ports are connected via four PCIe lanes on the 3.0 standard to the chipset and, in
combination with the NVMe protocol, enable a data transfer rate of almost 4 GB/s. This allows M.2 PCIe
SSDs to function up to eight times faster than SATA 6G SSDs!

The I/O panel of this motherboard offers connectivity to the new USB specification, USB Type C, a port
with a new slim profile and the ability to be plugged in either way. Apart from the Type C port the
motherboard also offers backwards compatibility with USB 3.1 Type A. USB 3.1 ports are rated for a
maximum achievable throughput of 10 Gbit/s, twice as fast as traditional USB 3.0 ports! As far as input
devices and other gaming peripherals are concerned, the I/O panel also offers two USB 3.0 and two USB
2.0 ports respectively.

Besides the Gigabit LAN port the board comes with its own WiFi Module, that even supports the
speedy ac-standard. If no graphics card is available, the integrated GPU on the Skylake or Kaby Lake
CPU allows for monitors to be connected directly to the rear of the motherboard - and both HDMI and
DisplayPort connectors are provided. Internally the motherboard offers - among other functions - three 4-
pin headers for PWM fans as well as XMP support and an array of overclocking features.

Product Specification:

Customer review

Average customer rating

Quality, Feature laden little ITX board

After much pondering I chose this motherboard to complete my ITX build with an i5 7600, 16GB ram, 256GB M2 drive crammed in to a tiny Lian li case, and I'm very glad I did.
It looks and feels a quality item, surprisingly weighty for its size, is smartly packaged and has well written documentation and useful utilities included.
Although overclocking wasn't my reason for buying, the Bios is very easy to follow should this be your intention. I chose it for the latest generation of connectivity options on offer, and the layout of the internal headers of which the majority are around the edge allowing for neater cabling. If I was to nit pick I would have preferred the other two USB2 ports on the back panel rather than on a header.
Setting up with Win10 booting from M2 NVMe SSD was very easy, with no optical drive all drivers and utilities were downloaded from the MSI website without a hitch.
This is my first MSI product purchase and couldn't be happier with the experience.

Andy Turgoose
2017-01-29

Easy to install, great performance

I haven't assembled a pc since early 2000s, during AMD Athlon thunderbird CPUs era, so I was a bit nervous I would break something.

This motherboard made it real easy, the manual is very clear with clear instructions for everything, it was a breeze.

Also, the build quality seems next level, it feels really durable, I felt confident applying pressure to it when needed.

BIOS is easy to use, even stuff I didn't feel confident in doing like tweaking fans and overclocking.

Finally, it looks great, like a gaming motherboard should, the red leds really fit in my build as well.